Professional Documents
Culture Documents
said Victoria matter-of-factly after lunch. Shee not here. She gone to pray to her God. Is she coming back? I asked, wanting to respect a persons desire to worship yet slightly anxious that a student would be missing revision. No, shee no come bak today. She knows theres an exam tomorrow morning, right? Yes said Victoria, that why shee gone to pray.
For lunch I had fruit which prompted Victoria to ask, That all yoo hav? It enough for you? She was slurping sticky-looking clear noodles from a bowl which contained bits of black mushroom so it looked like she was winding toad spawn onto her chopsticks. My bowl of fruit cost just 100 Taiwanese dollars and weighed three pounds. I assured my host it would be plenty. I cant teach on a full stomach.
One of the students brought myself, Victoria and Victorias assistant (Kelly) a juice. These are much bigger than they look in the photo and come with brightly coloured straws and tops. I love the way they just slam in a watermelon, kiwis or grapes into the blender and Bam! instant fruit juice. Im going to try every one within the next seven days and am tempted to save the bottles but think I shall have to curb my recycling addition. When you start importing waste from the East back into the West theres a problem. After a slow start in the morning the students began to warm up and threw themselves into practicing shoulder, hip and knee tests. I was relieved to discover they had retained much of the information from February and that their quiet demeanor was just their way of testing the turf, seeing what was going to be asked of them this time around. Once they knew things would be much the same as when they studied with me for the first block of the course, the noise level in the room went up and there were bursts of laughter. Always a good sign. Tonight I strolled out into the humid air and joined a slow procession of Taiwanese on vacation and milling around the central strip. Not wanting to walk far in this heat, I sat in Mos
Burger, the equivalent of MacDonalds except they play Mahler instead of Morrisey. It cool and empty here, bar from businessmen come to wind down and read the papers. I read the Taiwanese Times which I really liked. The writers enjoy using plenty of emotive words in their stories (the angry villagers thrashed the man until he was beaten to death) which are a mix of the political and provocative. For example, on the restaurant review page was an article entitled, How Much Is That Doggy In The Window , highlighting the growing unease with the killing and eating of dogs in Hanoi. With many people now keeping dogs as pets in Vietnam, police are on alert for dog thieves who sell the meat to city traders who can go through as many as six dogs a night when they are busy. Apparently. There were photos of skinless dead dogs, boiled, being casually chopped in half by slim women wielding meat cleavers. I took rather gleeful pleasure in reading about a man convicted of tax evasion, something the Taiwanese government takes very seriously, enforcing those convicted to obey an anti-luxury restraint. Having one of these slapped on you means you cannot travel by plane, train or taxi and cannot hire a car. You also cannot gift money to anyone, instructing them to spend your money in order to facilitate your luxury lifestyle. So you may retain wealth but cannot enjoy it. The price for evasion. I kind of like it. Also in the paper alongside an article about the Taiwanese taekwondo team arriving in Heathrow, was one about a man who had successfully petitioned the courts for a divorce of his wife on the grounds of her unreasonable shopping behaviour. It was not that she was spending a lot of his money, but what she was spending it on: large quantities of toothpaste and wigs, none of which was ever used. The courts judged that she was suffering from a psychological disorder that could not have occurred during the marriage. Admitting that his mother had a fondness for purchasing strange items I bulk, he agreed to support her financially and the court therefore granted the award for divorce. I listened to Mozarts Piano concerto whilst eating a small bag of delicious chips and watching the brightly lit buses waiting at the lights. Drivers here have red stop lights but are rather opportunistic so will chance running you down even when you have right of way, so crossing the road is something of an adrenalin rush. The animated green walk man speeds up as the seconds are counted down on the red digital clock so you know
that as he gets faster and the numbers get lower, you need to get your skates on so to speak. When youre into single digits and hes running so should you be.